


Peace of the Warrior

by crimsonepitaph



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 08:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7428157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonepitaph/pseuds/crimsonepitaph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day you are doing your job, defending clients in court - then, suddenly, you're pulled back into the world you left a lifetime ago and sent on a perilous quest, with only an enigmatic guide to help you navigate a world that changes moment-to-moment.This is the chronicle of Jared and Jensen's journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's note #1:** Written for the 2016 Big Bang challenge, during which I had the pleasure of collaborating with . I owe her a thank you for the amazing attention to detail and investment in the art fitting with the story, and for the all the fun the collaboration meant! Go see her art [HERE](http://moonlessnightz.livejournal.com/1870.html), and let her know how great it is!
> 
>   
>  **Author's note #2:** is a miracle worker. Huge thank you goes out to her, too, for once again helping me shape a story into cohesive form, and for providing me with summary, suggestions and general support and patience. 
> 
>  
> 
> **Author's note #3:** Thank you to the mods of this challenge for organizing this each year and giving us an amazing opportunity to share our stories and art, and to connect with new people!

                                                         

 

_The smoke lifts, staggers upwards. Amethyst blends with off-white, wreaths dancing in her palm. She touches it, fingers stroking the edges, and the faded grey turns red, fire dissolving in a dense cloud._

_Her eyes flicker, too, ablaze with desire. She’s not here; she’s lost in herself, as her low whispers spread, scrape at the walls._

_“No, please,” the king begs. “Please. Not yet.”_

_She raises her gaze, and her eyes are almost scarlet, unbearable contrast to the white, almost translucent skin. The Keeper is a form, a silhouette that lies, betrays the human she once was – long, lean, beautifully ethereal. But her eyes are cold and her smile is savage. She’s a monster, and there is no hope for her to return human again._

_She balls her delicate hands into fists, closes her eyes._

_“Choose, my king. Choose the one you will send to his death.”_

_He doesn’t have the strength. He can’t. He’d rather die himself. How could he choose between his son and his daughter?_

_The Keeper walks, drifts towards him. His silence is an answer measured in the wisps of sand falling from her fists, time frozen, fractured into tiny crystals._

_“Do not anger me, my king,” she croons, close to his ear. He can feel the cold puffs of breath stroking his skin. The king doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t move. “Or I will choose for you.”_

_He feels cold, numb, desperate._

_The King can’t speak._

_The King must pay his debts. He made a vow to the Keeper, an oath written in blood, one that every ruler of Alwarra must make._

_“I have given you what you wished for,” she reminds. “It is time.”_

_It is. It has already been too long. He made a deal for his kingdom, and it’s time to pay._

_He has to give back – the Keeper demands a sacrifice._

_The King is just a pawn this time._

_The Keeper’s hands are soft, almost warm when she wraps her fingers around the King’s wrists. He looks up, pleading one last time._

_“I can’t,” he mutters in quiet admittance of his failure. “I can’t.”_

_He shakes his head; forgotten gesture, unconscious, wrong. Unsuitable for a man of his title and stance._

_She smiles softly. “You’ve chosen already.”_

_The King has._

_He knew from the start. His heart is heavy and his mind bears the guilt of the warrior who can’t fight._

_The Keeper nods, and the smoke flickers again, billows into ropes of fear that bind his hands, his whole body._

_“He has a chance,” the King defies. “He will not die.”_

_The King has hope in his son._

_He closes his eyes when she begins muttering again. It’s done._

_There’s no reality to fade away, just a dream made out of his own faults._

 

“This is exactly why we need to do it!” Jared says, louder than strictly necessary.

He gets up, looks across the desk at Murray. Chad is looking at him, searching for something. The dark circles under Chad’s eyes tell the story of the last few days, spent exactly like this, with Jared arguing over and over the same points of a case that seems impossible.

Jared paces back and forth in the small office, hands in his pockets. He needs to think. He needs to find a solution for the client he and Chad have taken on. It’s a teenager, a sixteen year old kid who had stolen some medication and now faces charges of drug trafficking.

The lawyer part of him, the rational side, offers Jared countless ways to get their client out of this at a relatively cheap price. Murray has contributed to the long string of options that leave the kid free _–_ but all the choices leave the boy with a permanent mark on his record. It would be easier for Jared to ignore the voice inside his mind that makes him keep pacing, that tells him the kid doesn’t deserve to be indelibly tainted because one time, good intentions led to a bad decision. He knows there has got to be something that in the long term, actually helps Dylan be a functioning part of society.

“Come on, Chad,” Jared reiterates, “he stole a few bottle of pills for his sister. She was ill. To me, it looks pretty fucking simple.”

He’s not angry … Well, not at Chad. Not at the kid.

Just at the system, and at the world in general right now.

“Jared,” Chad starts in a voice that Jared finds incredibly patronizing, “your passion makes me gooey inside, really, but if you could come back from fantasy land, I’d really appreciate it. The kid did it. It’s not like we can find any other argument against it. Do the crime, do the time, isn’t it?”

Jared shakes his head, raises a hand when Murray tries to speak.

“No, hear me out,” Jared starts, turning towards his business partner. “I’m not saying the kid doesn’t deserve a punishment. I’m saying, there are better ways to mete it out.”

Chad leans back in his chair, crosses his arms. “I’m all ears.”

“He stole three bottle of pills, right? We need to start by talking with the pharmacy – maybe work out a deal with it.”

“What kind of deal?”

Jared loosens his tie, pulls at his collar. He feels hot, constrained in the suit he’s been wearing all day. God damn it, he needs to talk to maintenance again about fixing the air conditioner.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “But there has to be some kind of thing that the kid can do to pay it back. Maybe work for them, or –“

Chad frowns. “So your brilliant solution is giving the kid who stole medication more access to it.”

Jared stays silent for a few long seconds.

“Okay. Not my best idea. But you get what I mean,” he says, finally.

“Unfortunately, Padalecki, I do, and I hate it.”

“You love it,” Jared teases in a rare moment where he allows himself the levity. They need it. They’ve been at this for the better part of the week.

Chad throws a balled up piece of paper at him.

“Were those my notes?” Jared asks, because, well … with Murray anything is possible.

“Yeah, next I’m going to throw the court affidavit,” Chad deadpans. “No, it was my work of art during today’s deposition.”

“Wonder Woman or Batman?”

“Wonder Woman,” Chad nods.

In court, Chad’s the best guy you could have on your team. Smart, passionate, unyielding regardless of circumstances. However, put Chad in any kind of meeting, and there will be an entire notebook’s worth of comic book hero drawings.

“Okay, so, I get what you’re saying,” Chad states, getting them back on track. “But maybe keep it to sweeping the floor or something like that.”

Jared laughs wryly. “Yeah, like it’s going to be that easy.”

“Man the condom stand?” Chad tries again.

“Maybe,” Jared replies with a small smile. “Point is, we got to talk to someone who can okay a deal.”

Jared rolls his shoulders, tries to focus on Chad’s answer, but his mind, his thoughts –they’ve become ripples, swaying, threatening to spill over, a sensation that travels down to his arms and legs, a faint, stinging pain that makes him feel cold, leaves him numb.

Jared balls his fists, opens them again, tries to shake the feeling.

“Yeah, “ Jared hears Chad saying, but right now there’s no meaning he can possibly assign to Chad’s words, it’s too hot, too cold, he’s trembling, and incapable of moving, all at the same time.

Chad’s saying something. Again. And again.

Maybe he’s asking Jared if he’s alright.

“I’m fine.” He’s not sure if he actually said the words, but he isn’t. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s spiraling down, into a void where he’s kicking, screaming, only it’s all on the inside, no sound can come out, he has no power to voice it.

Jared staggers forward, places his hands on the desk. There’s only one thought, the only necessity that seems to slip through his fingers every time he reaches for it – _breathe._

He inhales, tries to feel the air filling his lungs – he can’t. The world turns fuzzier with each moment that passes. Jared turns to look at Chad, tries to talk, yell, plead for help – but there’s nothing, nothing other than blue eyes, wide and scared, watching him fall.

Jared’s knees give out. There’s a moment when he thinks he might be pulling out of it as a sharp pain resonates through his arm and he’s connected with his body once again, but it’s transient, hopeless, he is no longer tethered to a corporeal form –

 _At first there is nothing. Emptiness stretches all around … no walls, no ground, no limit -- nothing. It stretches all around, and he is part of it, insubstantial and tenuous and he panics as he tries to assert_ himself _into being, tries to reclaim form and substance and he orders himself to have a body,  feel a heartbeat, and above him appears  a patch of sky dripping life._

_Jared lets loose a breath and colors begin to drip from above, undulating stripes, melting around him, vibrating as he coughs, as he struggles to get air into lungs he is not sure he possesses._

_Jared’s head is ringing, a deafening sound that makes his entire body pulsate with each thump of his heartbeat, but he clutches the pain as evidence he is still existing in a body. He welcomes the tightness in his chest and tingling in his fingers as it claws its way upwards, to his elbows and arms._

_Chad. Where is Chad?_

_Chad’s was the last voice he heard, the last coherent sound. The silence engulfs him, it’s too heavy. He needs –_

_“Jared.”_

_The ill-formed world implodes with the new sound, rocked from its core, for moments that stretch into eternity. Jared reaches out but he’s forgotten there’s nothing to hang on to, until this world redefines itself in all the details that make it … normal._

_Jared looks up, sees the endless horizon, a sky of faded sapphire and patches of melted sun under his feet._

_“Father,” he breathes._

_Finally, Jared understands what this is._

_It’s home, reaching out for him._


	2. Part One

#       

 

Jared stares for seconds, or maybe hours.

He finds it hard to believe he’s here again.

Alwarra is his home, but, one that lives only in Jared’s memory. The discolored image that he has held on to for many years has turned from abstract to fluidly concrete forms that wait to be touched.

The view that stretches in front of him takes the form of a long hallway with walls made of billowy, flaming clouds, criss-crossed by patterns of cerulean ropes . It’s the Bridge to Alwarra that Jared has not walked in years.

Alwarra is hidden in those colors. Jared experiences an inseparable mix of happiness and melancholy as he stares down the Bridge’s pulsing corridor.

The borders that separate Alwarra from all other worlds are living, moving creations – they shift, adjusting to the evolution of the people living inside. They are as bright as the stars of the night when Alwarra is at peace;  the Bridge becomes crimson and purple when dark times fall.

Jared wonders why they’ve called him – and whether he’ll be able to pass the Bridge.

Does he still deserve to call Alwarra ‘home?’

Jared breathes out, taking his first unsure steps on the indistinct span. “Would it have been so hard summon me in a more subtle way?” he mutters, thinking that crash-landing on another plane of existence can be quite daunting.

Time and distance expand and compress and Jared does not know how long it takes him to reach the far side of the Bridge. Where the figure who called Jared’s name is waiting silently, watching with judgment.

“It is repetition and practice that alleviates the discomfort,” his father says, slowly, like Jared is still a child when Jared steps from the red of the Bridge into the flower-filled entryway.

“Yes,” Jared sighs. “Great. Ten seconds, father. I have been here ten seconds.”

“You must remember, time is of no importance here, my son.”

His father looks into Jare’d eyes as he speaks, arms crossed, standing tall. He stands like the King, _always_ – gaze unyielding and evaluating, equally as ready to give out a sentence as he is to comfort one who needs it.

The color of the King’s eyes is the forest in spring, a dark green that flickers brightly, eyes that pin Jared to the spot, make him want to prove himself worthy, be ten feet tall.

He’s always felt inadequate in comparison to the image of the perfect son the King had in mind.

“Uh-huh. Why am I here this time?”

His father stays silents, studying Jared. Jared fights the urge to look away.

“Jared,” the King whispers, and Jared wishes he’d scream, he’d say more than that.

But the King doesn’t. Jared can read in his eyes all the things he thinks his father wants, but they’ll never find their way out in words.

Jared shakes his head. “You can’t have pulled me from Earth just to make me feel bad for not visiting.”

There’s a faint smile, a slight curve of the King’s lips as he steps closer to Jared. He puts a hand on Jared’s shoulder, and Jared finds comfort in the solid weight of it.

But then the King’s eyes turn dark, slivers of emerald immersed in pain, endless green that boils in turmoil.

“I am sorry,” Jared’s father mutters, so low that Jared struggles to hear him.

Jared furrows his brow.

That’s all the time he has to prepare.

For the second time in the last few _hours? moments?_ he finds himself at war – not with outside forces, but with his own body and mind.

At least this time it is less of a shock.

The air around Jared solidifies as he stumbles backwards, and he closes his eyes, lets himself fall –a moment nonexistent in time, a reality that dims, changes out to blinding whiteness.

This time, Jared doesn’t fight. He lets his body detach itself from his mind, and anchors himself to a single thought. He searches for the memory that he knows to be real, a tether to his identity, a path that he long ago outlined for himself to always remember how to come back.

He doesn’t know how to do this anymore. Jared doesn’t want to admit it, but he knows his father is right. Going back and forth between the worlds used to be as easy as closing his eyes. Now, it’s hard even thinking about it. It’s become a forgotten part of himself Jared is not sure he wants to get back.

But none of that matters now, because the choice has been taken from him. The King’s touch lingers, burns a mark on his shoulder. Jared is too weak to fight the power that surges through him, even if he knew how to do it.

The last thing he hears is his father’s voice, broken and far away, but Jared can’t make out what he is saying. It’s just a second; that’s all it takes, passing through the void between worlds … but it feels like the emptiness sticks to Jared’s skin.

Jared expects to see his mother.

He expects to see the palace. He’d expected to see his sister, maybe, her smile, the eternal crown of pearly white flowers that she wore in her hair.

That was the picture that he held onto in his mind. It’s the intention that materializes the right world.

But the landscape in front of him is featureless sandstone. Above isn’t a sky, just piercing blue light that knows no bound or meaning.

Jared narrows his eyes.

What –

What is this? _Where_ is this?

And, more than anything, _why?_

It’s pointless, wondering that. A short time ago, he was … human. He remembers the musty smell of his office, the smooth feeling of Chad’s desk, the stickiness of being too warm in his suit.

And now … he doesn’t know where he is, what is happening.

Alone in the Empty, panic crosses Jared’s mind. But he can’t feel anything right now. It is too much of an effort even to unclench his fists, to move his feet to decide if he still can.

“Jared.”

The voice is smooth, graceful, tender.

But Jared’s weakened system can’t take even the calmness of the sound and he stumbles back, falters in a hesitant fighting stance. It’s been a long time since he’s used the skills acquired in his childhood, ones the royal children of Alwarra were supposed to have made second nature.

“Don’t be afraid, I mean you no harm.”

It’s a man, a silhouette that gains shape with each step it takes towards Jared. Slowly, it turns from an inky black outline to a body with depth and consistency, walking carefully, like it doesn’t want to scare Jared.

Well, mission accomplished.

Jared’s not scared. Right now, mostly, he’s just pissed off.

“What the hell?” Jared isn’t sure if he is asking the man or the Universe.

“My name is Jensen,” the man answers, inclining his head, “and I am your Guardian.”

“My what?”

“Your Guardian,” Jensen patiently responds, expressionless.

The man in front of him can’t be human. The few humans that have been granted the privilege of the other worlds can’t travel unaccompanied by an Alwarrian, and this man – this being – has an unearthly beauty, a fluid elegance that comes through in his very stance, every gracious movement. But he can’t be an Alwarrian.

Jared would feel it, he’d sense it, and this wouldn’t be so difficult.

“Look,” Jared starts, “I have no idea what my father told you –“

The figure shakes his head. “Your father has not said anything to me.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“You are The Marked one. You are here because you were destined to be.”

“I’m sure that made sense in your head,” Jared says, narrowing his eyes. Please start at the beginning.”

Jared’s proud of how his voice doesn’t break completely, even though the last part of his sentence borders on pleading. He’s shaking, hands and feet trembling with remnants of the shock he’s experienced.

The man motions towards a small, ridged bench carved from marble, one that Jared doesn’t think had existed until the gesture.

Jared hesitates, but it’s not like he’d know smart decisions from wrong ones – he has no guess as to the right course of action now – so he ungracefully collapses on the seat and buries his face in his hands, folds in on himself to try to stop shaking.

It’s could have been many moments – or none – before Jared raises his head from his palms, and finds the stranger’s eyes.

“Good,” he rasps, “I’m good. Please, talk.”

The man nods, but remains standing several feet away from Jared.

“You have been chosen,” the Guardian states, and Jared waits for more than that, holds his gaze until it’s clear that the man isn’t going to say anything more.

Jared sighs. “Chosen for what?”

“The Path,” comes the immediate answer, which, tells Jared nothing.

“What kind of an answer is that?” Jared lets his fear and anger color his voice.

The man remains impassive. “I am your Guardian, Marked One. It is my duty to only answer the questions that have been asked.”

“That’s _bullshit_.” The Earth curse word is the only one Jared can think of that expresses how he feels at that proclamation.

“You must do what you believe is right,” Jensen offers.

This is reminiscent of his childhood lessons with his father. Jared would never get an answer outright, just more riddles seemingly constructed to make him want to give up. And each time, Jared would push past the reflex to quit and burrow down harder, further, till he’d figured out the answer – and he finds himself doing it now.

“Okay,” Jared sits straighter, plays the game. “My friend Chad. What’s happened to him?”

“He is all right.”

Jared arches an eyebrow. “Really, he’s not having a heart attack right now? I would think seeing your best friend vanish from right in front of you isn’t the best time one could have.”

Despite Jared’s indignation, Jensen stays silent, seemingly indifferent to Jared’s concern for Chad. Jared realizes he’s powerless to do anything about Chad right now. So he changes the subject, tries another question that he hopes yields better results.

“Okay. Where is here?”

“ _Here_ is nothing. _Here_ is the start. _Here_ is what you choose it to be.”

“So this is all in my mind.”

Jensen blinks, and Jared takes satisfaction in the way the statement seems to confuse him.

Without warning, Jensen throws something in Jared’s direction.

Jared has no time to do anything but lean back abruptly with no success.  He feels a stinging pain in his shoulder.

“The hell – _ow._ ”

“Did you feel that?”

Jared fixes Jensen with a glare, rubs at the sore spot on his bicep.

“No,” he answers back, sarcasm dripping from the single syllable.

“You are on the Path, Jared. Mind _and_ body. It is not a dream. It is not your imagination. It is a place of action and consequence.”

“I am so glad you have practical demonstrations of that,” Jared huffs.

It’s all he can do right now. Be … angry. Frustrated. And try to understand. “Well, it’s definitely not Alwarra,” Jared states, and this time, it’s not a question, just a fact.  “So, why?” That’s all he has. The most human of thoughts. “Why me? And now?”

“Your father has chosen you,” Jensen replies in an even tone. “It was time.”

“Time for what?”

Jensen remains conspicuously silent.

Jared leans forward, rests his elbow on his knees. “I’m stuck with you?”

Jensen’s first outward display of emotion is an arched eyebrow.

“As long as you need me, yes, I will be by your side,” he says, in a way that gives the impression the words were very carefully chosen before being said out loud.

“Great,” Jared sighs. “Any other questions I should ask?” he inquires, because, why not.

“You are free to ask as many questions as you want.”

“Uh-huh,” Jared nods, getting up from the cold bench. “But?”

“You might not desire to,” Jensen answers dutifully, crossing his arms. “The hardest question is the one whose answer is obvious.”

Jared laughs, just a tiny bit on the hysterical side. “I sincerely doubt anything about this will be _obvious_.”

Jared’s best guess as to what this is would be that he is in one of his father’s mindful obstacle courses, designed to weed out the _unworthy_. Jared had the immense pleasure of participating in the King’s Trials every year as he was growing up, competing even when he was years younger than his opponents.

He was the one of the heirs. Jared had to do it, prove to his world, to his people, that he could do it.

Danneel, his sister, was so much better at it.

But she chose not to do it. She declined to participate, and, for some reason, her choice was worth more than Jared’s – because one of the King’s children had to take on the challenge.

The contests had always been a double-edged sword – the need to put forth a respectable showing, the pressure to uphold the reputation of the royal line – and yet Jared always felt that preparing for the challenges were the only time the King truly strove to understand him.  They would stay up at night, discussing tactics, his father sharing anecdotes, and Jared had listened, fascinated, to tales of different times.

So it wasn’t that much of a stretch to think that he’d been recalled to participate in this year’s course in some misguided attempt to reconnect, since Jared had been away from Alwarra for so long.

“Okay,” Jared says, taking a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go.”

And Jensen whispers, “Close your eyes.”

Jared does, a more trusting gesture that the situation would warrant.

“Can we go to a bar this time?” he asks, crossing his arms in front of him, joking to hide his vulnerability.

The silence that follows his remark is uncomfortable, and Jared’s tempted to peek at Jensen’s features – he’s irritated at being thrown into this without any kind of warning, but that’s in no way Jensen’s fault. It’s his father he should be mad at.

Jared tries to shake the train of thought; he needs to steel himself, focus. It’s been a long time since he’s done something like this.

And, from experience, Jared knows, it won’t be easy.


	3. Part Two

                                            
  


 

When Jared opens his eyes, what he finds is definitely not a bar. It’s slightly more concrete, but still a long way from the comfort of Alwarra.

He is on a pathway, a long line made out of coppery pebbles that simmer under the heat of an unknown sun. He faces off-white clouds, a narrow road, and the choice of direction.

Jared doesn’t move, not for a long time.

He stares, he tries to understand, for the millionth time since he was pulled away from his place on Earth.

Jared has never seen anything like this. Alwarra is fluid, always moving, changing, evolving.  Never static. The experience of Alwarra is the privilege of the enlightened, of the natives and the Travelers in passing. There would never be places in Alwarra that looked like this, so barren, so lifeless, so unchanging. If he didn’t know better, Jared would think this was Earth for the solidness of it – but even Earth had life always encroaching on the stillness.

The road reminds him of the bridge into Alwarra, but this isn’t be a structure, an overpass. It isn’t be anything that makes a connection to something else, because it seems like there is nothing more.

Jared has never felt so limited, so constricted, so small.

He wonders if the outside is a reflection of the inside.

“This isn’t one of my father’s trials, is it?” Jared asks Jensen when he sees his Guardian is also on the pebbled path, standing several lengths behind him.

He already knows the answer – Jensen just confirms it.

“No, it is not,” he says, expressionless.

“I wanted to believe it was.”

Jensen nods, like he knows what Jared means. Jared makes a conscious effort to stop the bitter laugh in its tracks.

“Have you ever heard the Legend of the Keeper?” Jensen asks, this time without any prompting.

Jared arches an eyebrow. “You can ask questions, too?”

“Only the ones I require the answer to,” Jensen replies in a tone that he manages to make sound scolding.

“And you are supposed to be my Guardian?”

“I am. Your Guide, Companion, Guardian.”

Jared grins. “But there are things you don’t know, huh?”

Jensen just stares at him.

Well, if Jared has to do this – test, at least he’s going to have a little fun.

“I thought you knew everything about me. Read my mind, or something like that.  Would have made me feel special,” he challenges.

To Jared’s disappointment, the dialogue he’s trying to start is crushed by Jensen’s implacable silence.

Jared sighs, motions with his hands forward. “Okay. Tell me the damn legend.”

Jensen remains quiet, and Jared wonders if their brief relationship has already ended.

Finally Jensen speaks, and his voice resonates surprisingly strong in the vacant surroundings.

“This is the story of the first Keeper,” he starts, fixing Jared with his gaze. “A little girl. She lived with her family in the charmed land that would become Alwa – “

“ _Charmed land_? Really?”

“– rra. She lived with her family: her parents, and her two siblings,” Jensen continues, unperturbed by the interruption. “They were a poor family, one that struggled to make ends meet, to feed their children and keep a roof above their heads.”

“See? Not charmed,” Jared interrupts again.

“The little girl’s parents decided to leave in search of a better life in another world, telling their children that they would return when they had found a new home for them,” Jensen goes on, a little louder than before.

“Let me guess: they never came back?”

“I thought you did not know the story.” Finally Jensen seems mildly annoyed at the repeated interruptions.

“I don’t. Or maybe I do. The Gods know, father always told me these kinds of stories before putting me  to sleep,” Jared shrugs. “Never listened to them very closely.”

It’s strange, remembering this. It wasn’t that he hated the King. Jared loved his father. It wasn’t because he didn’t feel like Alwarra was home to him.

It’s the uncomfortable feeling that spreads through him whenever he talks about his childhood. It’s a happy story, with a loving family; and yet, whenever Jared thinks about it, he feels both frustrated and guilty. Frustrated for all the things he had to do, just by the nature of his title of Prince: classes that he never enjoyed, challenges that made him feel like he always needed to prove himself. And guilty for  resenting it, feelings that even he could recognize as ungrateful and selfish.

“You are right, Jared” Jensen says, continuing the story and returning Jared’s attention to him. Jared registers his name solemnly rolling off Jensen’s tongue, the first time Jensen has said it with gentleness.

“The parents never came back. And one at a time, the two siblings went in search of them, but met the same fate. The little girl remained, sure that her family would return to her.”

There’s a brief pause, and Jensen moves a little away from Jared.

“She couldn’t leave, she couldn’t abandon her home,” Jensen explains, “she stayed, years, decades, centuries. Her will was strong, and her hope endless. And the strength of her belief altered the world.”

“ _She was the first Alwarrian. She keeps the keys to our land,”_ Jared recites from memory, a little piece of the puzzle coming back.

The first Alwarrian, the first immovable stone of their history. The first Keeper, the invincible one.

Jared used to think the story talked about an immortal creature. Alwarrians lived centuries – it seemed like a pretty good guess in a young boy’s mind, to whom the next afternoon’s rhetoric class seemed forever time away.

He thought as an adult that it wasn’t the Keeper who was immortal, but her legend.

“Yes,” Jensen nods. “She was the first of your kind.”

“I still don’t understand what that has to do with this. Nice story, but –“

Jensen shakes his head. “I was not finished.”

“Well, by all means, please do go on. There’s certainly no hurry, nothing we have to be about.”

Whenever the man in front of him reacts in the slightest way, with even the most minute of gestures – Jared can’t help but feel better. He can’t really explain it to himself – maybe it’s just the comfort of not being alone in this—whatever _this_ is.

“The part that only the royal family knows is the deal each King or Queen makes with The Keeper,” Jensen tells him. “In every generation one of the royal heirs must be given to the Keeper.””

“I don’t like where this is heading,” Jared frowns.

“They must promise her an heir,” Jensen continues, “in order for The Keeper to find her successor. Each generation a son or daughter is tested. One day will come her successor, and the keys to Alwarra will be passed on.”

“Yeah. Still not quite getting …”

But Jared doesn’t finish that thought.

He realizes: it’s _him_.

It’s Jared that the King sent to The Keeper.

“What happens to the children who don’t pass her test?” He is afraid of what Jensen will answer.

“No one knows. Once every generation an heir leaves Alwarra and never returns.”

And Jared realizes his father never told him that part of the story. There should have been stories of gaps in the royal lineage, but the family history must have been edited, the sacrificial sons and daughters omitted from memory.

Jared feels … weak. Powerless.

He feels his knees ready to give out, in a pathetic manifestation of the desolation that has taken hold inside. There’s a crushing weight pressing onto him – one that he can’t carry. Why was he never warned? Why didn’t his father tell him? Jared reaches, tries to find something. Something to be angry at. But there is no point. Why would he scream, when no one can hear him?

“Jared?” Jensen has moved close to him, almost touching his arm, offering comfort –

No. It’s just his mind, playing tricks on him. Jensen is here as an impassive companion, solely to make sure that Jared understands the course he is supposed to be taking.

Jared wills himself to focus. To listen. To be here, in the present. He forces himself back to this newfound reality because he knows his fear, his grief, weakens him, can mislead him.

He must not listen to the voice inside his head _– himself_ – because it tells him it is hopeless.

“Yeah,” he answers, voice stronger than he. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Jared takes a few steps along the road of molten-colored stones, just to move, do something other than stay motionless. He needs control, Jared needs to take charge of all that’s happening.

“So what does this mean? What am I supposed to do?”

Questions. That’s where he’s starting right now, to make sense out of the unthinkable tale that has torn Jared from his life.

“This is the Path –“

“Yeah, got that,” Jared interrupts, a little bit of anger spilling over. He needs his anger to make him move.

“ – and these are your choices. _This_ can be anything you want.”

Jared furrows his brows, hangs on to the thread of conversation.

“So, say I want to give up. I don’t want to do this anymore. Can I?”

“Of course. You can renounce the Path anytime you wish.”

“But?” Jared asks, fully aware it’s not going to be that easy.

Jensen replies, and Jared might be seeing things, but Jensen’s eyes are full of sadness.

Or maybe it’s the dubious light.

“Those who do not complete their journey become Shadows. They are not beings in the fullest sense of the word. Just … fragments of what they could have been. They lie in wait for all eternity.”

“So. Not a good choice. What happens to those who finish?”

“One day, one of them will become the new Keeper. The rest – those who the Keeper deems successful – they move on.”

But this is – this is something that gives him hope.

“Wait, wait – not everyone – I thought – so I can still get out?” Jared stammers.

“Of course.”

Jared clenches his fists. “Do you think maybe, I don’t know, you could have _started with that?!_ ”

In spite of Jared’s display, Jensen remains thoroughly dispassionate. “I have told you from the beginning; I can only answer questions that are asked.”

“Motherf – “ Jared starts, but catches himself in time.

He breathes, one, two, three, then speaks again.

It’s more complicated than he thought. It’s different, it’s unknown, and that feeling that tries to burrow down and twist Jared’s insides until he is too paralyzed to act?

Its adversary is knowledge.

“Okay,” he starts, “okay – _how_ do I get out of this?”

There. That has to be clear enough.

“You reach the end,” Jensen replies, and Jared wants to hit something, because, apparently no, not clear enough.

“Jensen –“

“You go forward,” Jensen adds, and maybe there’s some deep, spiritual meaning to all this, but right now, all Jared can process is _frustratingly circular_. “You make the _right_ choices.”

“How will I know what they are?” Jared asks without thinking.

Jensen’s reaction this time is so obvious that Jared can’t believe his eyes. Jensen has moved away from him and is smiling.

“It is not a question of knowing, Jared. It’s one of _trusting_.”

Jared stares at him for a few moments. He watches how _human_ Jensen’s face is, alight with life, in contrast to the stillness of Jensen’s body – the way Jensen’s hands remain at his sides, how when Jensen walks, his feet don’t lift up from the ground. He – glides, _drifts_.

Why is he trusting Jensen? Who – what –?

In the spirit of doing the best he can, Jared stops that train of thought before it spirals into complete panic.

“Right,” Jared tries to get back on track. “And at the end, what? What’s the point of all this then? Just my father’s twisted sense of humor, or what?”

There has to be a greater reason for it.

“At the end of your journey … you are free,” Jensen says, accentuates the last word in a way Jared finds peculiar. “You are free to be the man you are,” he adds. “Your father has chosen you for this because he believed you had a chance. Many have tried, Jared – but few have reached the other side. This place is overrun with Shadows, with those who surrendered themselves.”

Jared frowns. “That’s … encouraging.”

“It is not meant to be anything other than true,” Jensen replies.

“But then – why me? Danneel – “ Jared starts, but cuts himself off. He wouldn’t wish this on his sister, as hard as he finds it.  “There has to be a better reason for it,” he finishes.

Jared doesn’t know how to feel about his father’s choice.

Does he feel proud, privileged that the King put his trust in him?

Does he feel betrayed, for being sent to a fate that could be worse than death?

Or does he feel angry for being forced into something he didn’t chose?

“The King can choose any of his children, that is true,” Jensen agrees. “But he _must_ choose someone that he believes has a fighting chance; the fate of his Kingdom rests in their hands.”

“How’s that?” Jared inquires, frowning.

This revelation brings a new wave of confusion – the feeling of isolation was, in some ways, vindicating. He had only himself to fight for, and that seemed easy, at least easier compared to the option that’s being outlined right now – bearing the destiny of his entire world on his choices.

“The Kingdom is only as strong as its leaders,” Jensen replies.

In this game of gloom and doom, Jared kind of expected something more spectacular.

“You might not think that is much explanation,” Jensen adds, and Jared fleetingly entertains the notion that Jensen is reading his mind, “but Alwarra is built on the strength of its people. When they lose faith, then, what’s left?”

Jared thinks about Jensen’s statement for a minute.

He thinks about how he hasn’t been home in so long. He tries to find a memory of his father and mother being anything other than pillars of strength, patches of solid land in Jared’s sometimes turbulent sea of thoughts.

If they hadn’t been like that … if there hadn’t been something to believe in … would Jared be the man he is now?

Would Jared believe that, as hard as it is, he can do this?

Jared ponders that, and maybe it takes him too long, because there’s still residual emotion left behind, aftershocks of the rollercoaster ride that has swallowed him.

It’s strange, not knowing how time passes. It’s liberating.

“Jensen?” Jared asks, for what he hopes is not the last time.

The man searches for the answer in Jared’s eyes.

“I’m ready. How do I start?”

Jensen smiles again.

“You already have.”


	4. Part Three

                                                            


 

_“Come on, Jared, we’re going to be late,” Chad yells._

_Jared’s at the bottom of the courthouse steps, phone in his hands, thumbs tapping away. Admittedly, right before an important court appearance is not a good time to get into a fight with your boyfriend._

_“Yeah, yeah, coming,” Jared mumbles._

_He has a hard time switching gears, even as he rushes up the steps to join Chad._

_“The hell’s with you today?” Chad asks, frowning._

_It’s a reversal of the usual dynamic between them. Chad’s the guy who Jared calls half an hour before any kind of court appearance to find out he’s only just getting in the shower. To Chad’s credit, he always shows up, and ninety percent of the time, he actually looks respectable._

_“Nothing,” Jared replies, with the full cognizance of what that means – later._

_Right now, his issues with Aldis need to take a backseat._

_They meet Dylan in the hallway, and if Jared thought he felt like a hot mess – well, the kid surpasses that by a mile. He’s pacing up and down, rubbing his palms together, and almost passes out when Chad puts a hand on his shoulder._

_“Hi,” Dylan rasps out, voice breaking, ”Hey. Yeah. I – I’m ready,” he mumbles._

_That’s all it takes for Jared to switch back to the calm professional._

_“Dylan, hey,” he starts, manhandling him to a chair, and crouching down in front of him. “You need to breathe.”_

_The kid looks at Jared in pure panic mode._

_Jared nods. “Breathe. Come on. Get out of your head and focus on me,” he demands, looking straight into Dylan’s chocolate-brown eyes. “Everything’s going to be fine.”_

_Jared hears a_ tsk _in the background, and promptly ignores it. If Chad doesn’t want to look on the bright side, that’s okay. Jared can do that for all of them._

_Jared watches the rise and fall of Dylan’s chest, how it slowly gets back to a normal rhythm, all the while Chad taps his foot impatiently behind him._

_But this is more important: all of them entering the courthouse with a clear mind. This is too important to let emotions rule their thinking, when a decision will need to be made as rationally as it can be._

_Dylan looks up at Jared, nods._

_“Ready?” Jared asks, smiling encouragingly._

_Dylan doesn’t reply. He just presses his lips into a thin line, gives an almost imperceptible nod._

_Well, at least it’s more honest than his initial reply._

_They step forward toward the doors of the court room, Murray imparting his own version of an uplifting gesture by patting Dylan on the back._

_Jared’s the one who reaches for the handle – but when he touches it, it takes inhuman effort not to scream._

_It burns._

_It burns, and Jared’s reflexes prove too slow, because when he takes his hand back, the skin of his palm is crimson, layers peeled back._

_“What the –“_

_Jared turns towards Dylan and Chad, but they melt in an indistinct blur, voices fading out, sound distorted like Jared’s underwater._

_Jared struggles to hear what is being said to him._

_All he can make out is Murray pleading with him to wake up._

_Why? Why would Chad say that?_

_Jared’s already awake._

_The doors finally open, but inside there’s no room, just light, blinding light that gives way to emptiness inside._

_Jared hears his name called. Again and again._

_He feels something pull at his wrist, but it’s faint, barely there._

_Jared struggles to think, even as the ground under him begins swaying, shattering in places, his thoughts blending, drifting farther away from him._

_It can’t be real. It isn’t._

_The ground opens, and Jared falls, and he screams, because he wants to live._  


  


When Jared opens his eyes, there’s a sky, and it’s blue, but not the blue knows from all those years on Earth.

He blinks, tries to remember –

Where is he?

Not Earth. Alwarra?

A rough but quiet voice sounds out. “You’re not in Alwarra.”

It takes a few seconds, but Jared finally settles into reality. Jensen, the Path. Right.

He sits up, slowly, a little unsure of what he’s going to find when he looks around him.

“What –“ he starts, but his voice fails him, cracks.

Jared coughs, clears his throat. “What the hell was that?”

They’re in a small clearing, ground covered with soft moss, warm, welcoming under Jared’s fingertips. Trees are all around them, trees like Jared’s never seen before, stretching upwards and brushing the sky with their tips, with crowns of lavender, amethyst and lilac that pour forth images of joy and lightness – a view that doesn’t fit with Jared’s mood right now.

Jensen’s a few feet away from him, sitting with his legs crossed, palms opened towards the now pale gold sky.

“That was a dream, Jared,” Jensen finally answers. “It is to be expected to retain some fragments from the worlds you left behind.”

Jared rubs a hand over his face. “Great,” he mumbles, “memories with Chad is exactly what I need.”

Memories with Chad, and memories with Aldis.

They’re both part of a life Jared had carefully built in a world where he was a stranger.

Chad and Aldis. People Jared cared about, but people that had known so little about Jared, that he wonders if there could ever have been a genuine relationship.

“You know, maybe Chad is laying in padded room somewhere …” Jared muses out loud, thinking about the way he left, “… or in a ditch.”

Well, Chad always liked to try to soak his problems in enough whiskey to get a baby elephant drunk.

“Have you ever thought about the others?” Jared asks, raising his gaze to meet Jensen’s.

Jensen frowns.

“I am not sure what you mean.”

“I’m just saying – Chad probably thought I was having a heart attack or something _actually_ serious and life-threatening. Plus, I’m pretty sure my body slowly disappearing into another world didn’t help matters.”

“He will be fine,” Jensen assures him with a little too much conviction.

“What if he’s not?”

Jensen shakes his head. “The _what ifs_ have no purpose here, Jared. There is only the present, and all you can understand from it.”

“I get that,” Jared acquiesces, but the things Jensen talks about are an intellectual concept, hard to put into practice.

“But how do you leave the past behind? How do you not think about it? How do you not ask questions?“ Jared asks, genuinely curious if there’s an answer to that that would make life exponentially easier.

“There is no past.”

Jared stares dumbly at his Guardian.

“I am honestly afraid to ask what you mean.”

“Think about it,” Jensen says calmly, never moving a muscle, motionless and rigid, except for his eyes, full of an intensity that Jared has trouble meeting for longer than a few seconds at a time. “Here,  or on Earth …  or Alwarra ... Right now, in this moment, it is the present that exists. The past is only a memory.”

“You’re just saying the same words over and over again to confuse me,” Jared accuses.

“No – I am not, Jared,” Jensen sighs all too humanly. “You have a room with a table in it. When you leave the room, how do you know the table is still there?”

“Common sense? Memory?”

Of course, Jensen considers this an appropriate moment to stare at Jared expectantly.

He has failed to take into consideration the distraction that causes.

Jared doesn’t know if it’s the mystery surrounding Jensen that draws him in, or the fact that Jensen is the only other being here, or if it’s simply Jensen, the whole, incredible creature that Jared can’t stop staring at.

“You made your point,” Jared agrees, struggling to concentrate on the conversation and not the shades of green in his Guardian’s eyes. “And successfully evaded any real answer,” he finishes, getting up from the warm ground.

He needs to move. To stop thinking about this and go forward.

_To be is to do._

Isn’t that what his father had taught him?

But he only takes a few steps before the perspective tilts again, ground shaking under his feet.

Jared turns towards Jensen, arches an eyebrow. “This a dream, too?”

“No, Jared. This is your first challenge.”

The surroundings blur, colors merge around Jared. He keeps his focus on Jensen, the only solid point in his sight. He feels drawn to him, to the calm in the sea of turmoil.

Their little spot vibrates, trembles from the inside out. The view blurs, the colors darken and blend, and Jared blinks, tries to keep himself upright.

But that resolution is tried almost as soon as he thinks it – a paw, with cold, indistinguishable claws reaches through his chest, pulls, twists –

Jared steels himself against the shock of it, but it pulls again, ripping through him.

He realizes this is the test of the Unknown, taking an odious form, surrounding Jared, tearing into him, wanting to eviscerate Jared’s spirit.

But Jared can fight, and he will. He will fight.

He breathes through the agony.

Jared breathes, even if as his body tries to tell him he can’t.

He takes a step, a little one, forward. It feels like it takes all the strength he has. He is overwhelmed. The claws shred his skin, pierce his bones, seeking to rip his heart … he cannot take the pain, he cannot fight it, get away from it –

But that’s a lie, too –

Because the next step is easier.

The grip loosens, and Jared wants to pull it out, he wants to be free of its hold.

And, what he realizes with each step forward – the surprising realization – he is leaving it behind.

 

The little world comes back into focus. Jared blinks, he tries to come back to himself, only to find he’s already there, that the monster has not moved him – it has left its mark, but Jared is still standing. He feels exhausted, he feels like he’s climbed a mountain, but the reward is the knowledge of his own strength, of his own success.

The Unknown takes shape, becomes tangible, visible as an animal-like outline. It curls itself around the tree trunks, but here, everything is born out of Jared … if Jared has renounced the Unknown, the earth does, too, and the shadowy manifestation fades into nothingness.

As soon as the form disappears out of sight, Jared folds over, expels a breath that he feels he’s been holding onto for too long.

“Fuck me,” he so eloquently adds when he finally feels like he can speak, closing his eyes and bringing a hand from his knee to rub over his face while he considers what the lesson is from this encounter.

It was the unexpectedness of it. That first doubt that crept in, that corroded his defenses.

It’s been too long since he has done something like this.

He thinks back to the King’s Trials that he experienced too many years ago. He can see where, yes, they were a subtle preparation for what he just endured – but  the first thought that had gone through Jared’s mind when the Unknown attacked was exactly the one he’d never had as a child: how alone he is.

He’d beaten the Unknown this time, but …

What if? What if he can’t next time?

Jared feels himself surrendering to his doubts, letting _he got lucky_ take the credit for his win …

“Congratulations, my Hero,“ Jensen’s soft voice resounds, and it feels like it’s brushing against Jared’s entire skin, etching itself onto his body.

Jared hangs onto the last word.

“Why did you call me that?” he asks, confused.

Jared doesn’t think he deserves it. Not now. Maybe when he completes this endeavor, maybe then.

“You are my Hero, and I am your Guardian,” Jensen recites.

“That sounds like a line from a bad fantasy novel.”

“These are names that the legend has given us,” Jensen explains. “You do not like to be acknowledged for what you are?”

Jared shrugs, changes the subject.

“So, that’s it? The big test?” he asks, hopeful, with the full cognizance that it can’t be that easy.

“No, it isn’t. Fear will show itself in the most inopportune of moments.”

Jared sighs. “Fear. Of course.”

Jared dares to believe that he knows how to defeat it. He knows it won’t be easy. But Jared doesn’t plan to fight it.

He’d tried that too many times when he was a child.

Jared had tried to shove smaller versions of that particular monster in a box, and close the lid tight. He’d believed too many times he’d won the battle only to find it resurrected for another fight.

Finally he realized it’s not a battle at all.

It’s acceptance, the acceptance that he’s not invincible, the truth he finds in the realization that a momentary weakness does not define him in its entirety.

It’s a lesson he’s learned before, one that serves him right now, knowing the experience of Fear will make him stronger.

All the long hours spent talking with his father before the King’s Trials are making more sense now.

“What now?” Jared asks the obvious question.

Jensen moves, just as fluidly as ever, to stop an arm’s length away. He holds Jared’s gaze with pride.

“Now we wait,” he whispers, reaching to brush his fingers – surprisingly calloused, rough – against the back of Jared’s hand. “Now we learn to be still.”

Jared’s too distracted by the Guardian’s touch to really process his words. He hears them, but that spot – the little patch of skin between his wrist and knuckles – tingles, makes him burn with the desire to touch it himself. It feels _different_ than the rest of his body.

Jared folds towards the ground willingly, without protest.

Jensen takes a seat in front of him, but his descent is infinitely more graceful than Jared’s.

“Close your eyes,” Jensen instructs.

This part, Jared doesn’t yet understand. But he’s willing to give it a try, to let himself be both the prisoner and ruler of the moment.

Jared closes his eyes, and waits for Jensen to say more than that.

But he doesn’t; and Jared, wondering a million things about himself and a million more about Jensen, forgets.

He breathes, and the breath is the only thing that guides him.


	5. Part Four

                                                              
  


 

_Jared thinks he sleeps. His dreams are full of questions, questions that he dissects, ruminates on until they lose their meaning, but still they plague him, repeating over and over …_

_The Path fills his mind, grueling, full of doubts – it drains him. It’s a rollercoaster of emotion, of thought, of instinct. The circumstances change from one second to another, and Jared labors to keep up._

_He opens his eyes after what seems like too little time to properly rest._

_To white. Translucent, almost transparent – like it would break if Jared could touch it. He doesn’t – he can’t._

_Jared is  a presence without  substance, a specter without reality to offer it color and shape. He’s floating, drifting, taking no steps, a warm breeze moving him along. He doesn’t exist. He doesn’t want to._

_The impossibility of the breeze snags his focus. He doesn’t know where it comes from, what could be generating it._

_As he ponders the enigma, the Nothingness shifts, a figure solidifies._

_Jensen stands by his side, and, to Jared’s surprise, he’s tangibly real, crisp white cotton against tan skin, long lashes brushing against freckles._

_“Where are we?” he asks his Guardian._

_The Guardian must know. That is why he’s here, isn’t he?_

_“The Future.”_

_The answer is as puzzling as everything Jensen has spoken. Isn’t the point of their journey the Present?_

_Is Jensen meaning it as a riddle, or is it a straightforward answer?_

_“I meant, Jensen – is this a dream? Or whatever that was before? Or ..” Jared pauses in anxiety, “Or if it’s the Future – do  you mean this is the end of everything?”_

_He doesn’t understand, and he is scared._

_“There is no need for fear, Jared. This is a safe space,” Jensen answers, and Jared wonders once again just how much does Jensen read his thoughts._

_“How can it be? It’s empty.”_

_“It is precisely your fear that empties it, empties its contents.”_

_Jared doesn’t know how to answer that; if he doesn’t know what he is afraid of, how can he eliminate it?_

_“You do not need to, Jared. You just need to separate  false apperances from the truth.”_

_Maybe, it is a dream Jared reasons from that reply._

_This Jensen seems to read Jared’s mind. Or maybe, Jared is speaking wordlessly, voicing his thoughts._

_He knows, on some level. But he can’t grasp the answer to that question, it slips through his fingers, again and again._

_“Look around you, Jared,” Jensen suggests. “See how the edges have color?”_

_It’s true. Where Jared and Jensen are standing – it’s unclear. It’s a patch that intertwines vague crevasses of white with spots of clear, solid glass, with a white background that seems infinite, both liquid and hard, a contradiction that Jared’s mind simply accepts._

_But there are edges to their bubble – which has become a dome, a structure that creates itself in front of Jared’s eyes – and the edges are colored. Patches, orange of the fiery sun, midnight of the deep sea. With all hues in between –  delicate, meticulous strokes jumbled with splotches that look like someone threw paint at the inexistent wall._

_“That’s … you. Your decisions. The cold, rational ones. The impulsive ones. Your thoughts. Happy, carefree, bright. Dark, swirling, twisting. This is freedom. This is what you get at the end of the path.”_

_“A Void.”_

_“No, Jared. This is the knowledge you have made all the right decisions. The right decisions because they have created_ you _. Acceptance of your past. The hope for the future.”_

_Jared has no clue how to feel about the vibrant abstract of color that is overwhelming him ._

_“I still don’t understand.”_

_“This is your Nothing and your Everything.”_

_“Jensen –“_

_How can an answer make so little and so much sense all at the same time?_

_“You must understand, Jared – this is what you will it to be.”_

_“Is it that simple?”_

_“It is both simple and complicated, my Hero. It is as simple as you make it and as complicated as it can be,” Jensen’s quizzical answer comes._

_In a flash of insight, Jared understands there is no clear answer to be given to him – Jared must discover it himself, step by step. He must appreciate all the contradictions._

_He must be patient, both with the Path and with himself._

_He chooses– acceptance._

_Jared closes his eyes, not in defeat, but to return to himself._   
  


  
  
  


In his mind, Jared had seen the Path as an abstract thing, as a journey that stretched beyond limits of the palpable, and subtly permeated the layers of his conscious and subconscious mind. He had never guessed that the Path would translate into something real, something close to the image that comes to mind when uttering the word.

The Bridge to Alwarra, then his meeting with Jensen in the Empty, then the pebbled road that truly started his journey – to some extent, these were all known quantities.

Maybe he hadn’t seen the Empty before,  but it was impossible not to recognize it from the stories his mother had told Jared and his sister when they were little.

As a child, the tales seemed equally fascinating and frightening. Jared and Danneel never knew – would they like a place where Nothing exists? Where the only creations are the ones of their own mind? While their eyes scoured the horizon, and the glistening turquoise sea of Alwarra, the Empty turned into the Everything, dripping with enthusiasm and continuously spreading with the possibility of new things.

But as they grew older, they forgot about the possibilities of the Empty, and it changed its meaning, became something to fear.

He had accepted thoughts that had limited his possibilities, but because he never let them form, never allowed them to take shape as permanent obstacles, he never realized how they had rooted themselves in his psyche and restricted his choices.

Now Jared marches along a jade-colored pathway of smooth, fine dust that catches the glint of an ever-present sun. The sun changes colors, fiery crimson at first, turning into a confusing teal – but always shining in the sky, lighting Jared’s way and giving warmth.

The warmth is deliberate, a conscious effort on Jared’s part. As is the jade path, because Jared is very aware of each step he is taking. The rest of the surrounding vary from moment to moment, and while it is hard for Jared to understand that every change is stemming from somewhere in his thoughts, he accepts that he is responsible for the appearance of the Empty as they travel through it.

Maybe the Path twists and rises with each step he takes so that he can watch Jensen glide beside him with his otherworldly grace, over the subtle valleys and ridges, as the footpath snakes and curves, the jade under their feet shading into shimmering pine. He and Jensen cast shadows on the matte, sober ivory background which unexpectedly brightens as if nuanced by leaves filtering morning dewdrops.

“How are you?” Jensen asks, surprising Jared with an attempt to start a conversation.

He’s turned to gaze at Jared, eyes following Jared’s movements closely.

“Fine,” Jared shrugs.

He’s a little distracted; he can’t stop thinking that out of all the shades of green, the one in Jensen’s eyes is the most beautiful one. The path begins to alter to the same hue.

“Why do you do me the discourtesy of a non-truthful answer?”

Jensen’s tone carries a reproachful edge.

“What do you mean?” Jared frowns.

“I believe I have answered all your questions,” Jensen states.

“Debatable.”

“To the extent of my best knowledge,” Jensen continues, though Jared might debate that. “So, why do you not return the favor?”

“And this is all because I said _fine_?”

Jensen stays silent for a few moments, studying Jared, then looks away.

“I do not understand.”

“Don’t understand what?”

It’s hard to imagine his implacable Guardian being bewildered.

“Why you insist on using substitutes for the truth.”

Right. Well. Jared needs a few seconds to process that reply.

“Okay. _You_ as in me? Or Alwarrians in general? Or just people?” Jared questions, narrowing his eyes.

When Jensen tries to speak, Jared puts up a hand.

“Nope, not done. What truth? And,” Jared finishes, “is this about me or some bigger thing that I’m probably not going to understand in the immediate future?”

Jensen lets Jared finish, listening to Jared’s request for clarification with interest.

Jared dares think Jensen’s amused.

“You ask a lot of questions,” Jensen ultimately replies.

“I thought that was the whole point.”

Success – Jensen disproves Jared’s theory that he’s a feelingless creature by actually smiling.

Jared thinks it is quite possible that Jensen is a figment of Jared’s mind. Which, given the reality of the Empty being simply what Jared’s mind creates, is very likely.

Jared does not want to think about that.

“It would be helpful if you said more than ’fine,’” Jensen interrupts Jared’s distressing reverie, “It would help me more if I knew what you are feeling. “

“This Guardian thing doesn’t come with a user manual?”

Jensen nails a look of annoyance. “I have answered your questions with detailed stories.”

“They haven’t been terribly helpful.”

“You haven’t asked the right questions, then.”

“So, it’s my fault,” Jared complains.

“I did not imply –“ Jensen hurries to corrects, but Jared bursts into laughter.

“Jensen, relax,” he reassures his Guardian, “I was joking. I do that, sometimes.”

Jensen is surprised by that. He turns his head abruptly towards Jared, emerald eyes wide and searching.

“I must confess something,” he says hesitantly, “You are unlike anyone I have ever met.”

Well.

What does Jared say to that?

“You must not get out much.”

“I am from Neirni, ” Jensen offers a piece of the puzzle to Jared in a nonchalant manner, like they were discussing the weather. “I was born during the Great War. That was not a place for light-heartedness. We were trained to not respond to emotions,” he finishes, voice level, without inflection.

He’s still looking at Jared, in a way that makes Jared want to move away and step closer in equal measure.

“I’m sorry,” Jared replies sincerely, feeling a tightness in his chest when he grasps Jensen’s origin. _I’m sorry_ doesn’t change a thing, but Jared feels better for saying it.

“Thank you,” is all Jensen responds.

Jared narrows his eyes. He’s confused. Jensen is a cipher of a man, of something real. Minute gestures, a rare smile, rhythm and cadence in his voice, changes in intensity – they’re scarce, scattered between replies that Jared doesn’t understand.

How did Jensen get here? _Why_ is Jensen here?

These are questions that Jared feels he doesn’t have the right to ask yet. He changes the subject instead.

“Where are we going?”

“Nowhere,” Jensen answers matter-of-factly.

Jared sighs. “See, now I have to understand if that’s you being clever or if that is literally where we’re going.”

“Jared. We are going nowhere. That is what I said.”

“Is this the part where I ask why?”

“Because you never said.”

Jared stops, stares at Jensen with wide eyes.

“Excuse me?”

“You need to decide,” Jensen states, like it’s patently obvious, like Jared should have known all along.

Jared inhales, tries to smother the feeling of revolt rising up.

“So … we’ve been doing this – pointlessly?”

“There’s no such thing. Every step leads somewhere,” Jensen counters.

“You just said –“

“Yes, _we_ are currently going nowhere. But the road is not.”

Jared sighs in exasperation. “How can those be two different things?”

Jensen stops, too, stands a few feet away from Jared.

“When you will understand that, you will make the right choice.”

For Jared, the instinct right now is to take a seat on the ground, and refuse to move until Jensen explains everything in plain English.

Jared already knows how well that would work.

“Okay,” he exhales slowly. “Okay. Until then, what? We wander around? We stop? What?”

Jensen is supposed to be his Guardian. Shouldn’t he know?

Shouldn’t he tell Jared where to go?

 _Oh_.

Right.

The epiphany is somewhat liberating.

“This is my journey,” Jared starts, a little bit unsure, but Jensen encourages him by nodding. “So. This is … this is the ‘choose a door’ kind of thing?”

But Jensen frowns. “I do not understand what you mean.”

Jared makes an all-encompassing motion with his hands. “There’s more than one option, right?”

“There’s an infinite number.”

Well.

“So how do I _choose_ , Jensen? If there’s an _infinite_ number of options?”

The volume rises as Jared finishes that sentence, and Jared feels a little bit ashamed for almost yelling at him, but it’s so frustrating.

Right now, the only answer to the Empty is anger.

Jared’s father had made a choice and sent Jared along a road that he never wanted to travel.  What has Jared done to deserve this? Who has he wronged to be the one to have to do this?

He knows anger’s not something that will help him. But he indulges, even though he knows he shouldn’t.

And he’s scared, the kind of fear that goes from zero to a hundred in a minute, the terrifying realization that he might be stuck here, that this is all there is.

It isn’t the fear. It’s the fear of the fear lasting forever, overcoming his rational mind.

He doesn’t understand how to get out of this place, it feels like he can’t –

There’s a loud sound, a crack that resonates off invisible walls and echoes across the strange playground.

There is no visual effect to go with that the thunder, but he’s waking up. Swimming toward a current of thought.

Jared looks up to find Jensen already watching him.

“What are you doing?” Jensen asks neutrally.

Jared, with fresh memories of their last debate, decides that his best answer right now is honesty.

“Freaking out.”

Jensen seems a little stumped at his reply, so Jared decides to ask more questions to help him make sense of all this, and, more importantly, distract him from the doomsday scenario in his mind.

“What was that?” he starts, referring to the loud noise that had thankfully interrupted his thoughts.

“Thunder,” Jensen answers just a little bit too quickly.

Jared arches an eyebrow. “I find that hard to believe. You know, on the account, there’s _no_ _weather_ ,” he protests.

Jared expects some sort of wise, peculiar answer that offers an explanation, but, instead, to his surprise, Jensen stays silent, _shrugs._

“You needed a distraction,” Jensen mutters, breaking eye contact, and, if Jared didn’t know any better, looking … _guilty?_ “I took the energy you were giving off and gave it form. It chose its own way to manifest, but I … facilitated it.”

Momentarily, Jared’s much more intrigued by this newfound power of making Jensen react, of Jensen breaking out of the rigid Guardian personality than he is worried over his own predicament.

“I should not have done that,” Jensen continues, tone rougher, voice stronger, and, this time looking straight at Jared. “I am sorry.”

The good thing is – it worked. Jared still feels like he’s bursting with energy, with fear, with a mix of emotions that swirl and scratch at his insides until he finds the right words to voice them out loud. However, Jensen’s voice does exactly what it promised at the start. It guides him, but rather than being some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, it’s a welcome presence in the cold darkness, a warmth that Jared can feel trickling down his skin, spreading through his chest and fingers like the waves that caress the sand at the point of return, slow, easy after a roaring crash where the waves collapsed on the beach.

“It’s okay,” Jared assures him frankly. “You’re my Guardian, right? I’m sure that stopping a downward spiral into irrationality is in the job description.”

Jensen’s lips curve into the smallest smile in response.

“My duty is to help you in any way I can.”

What Jared manages to gather from this is – Jensen’s not omnipotent. Strangely, it makes Jared feel better. His companion is not perfect, not in the way Jared had imagined, he is not the man who has the answers to all the Universe’s questions.

His Guardian is flawed. Jensen is figuring out things, too, when it comes to Jared.

Jared feels more comfortable in his presence – less alone.

“I think I got it,” Jared mutters, remembering something The King had taught him.

Jensen waits patiently for Jared to continue, and Jared takes a few seconds to find his words.

“It’s Doubt, isn’t it?” Jared asks, wry smile in place.

It’s the trickiest of challenges, Jared thinks, the one that sneaks up, that doesn’t distinguish itself from the whole as a simple part. It takes no form, but attaches itself to the thoughts in Jared’s mind, and, when Jared can’t recognize it, how can he fight it?

Jared wants to laugh, because he’s fallen for it countless times. He aspired to reach the stage of recognition beforehand, to understand himself better than that. It was a question of whether he liked who he was – most of the time, he did. But the doubt became his friend, too, when he grew up. It took a special place in his mind.

_The doubt in your mind is natural, my son. It’s part of me, of you. Of us. What’s important is to not let it trickle down, and reach your heart._

That’s what Jared’s father used to say.

And, until now, Jared had managed it.

He wants to believe that he’s not alone. Jared chooses to understand that it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know where he’s going. He embraces the uncertainty. He accepts the voice inside his mind that tells him he’s in the first seconds of a free fall, and the pull in his chest that questions if it’s the right decision.

It’s difficult, transforming those thoughts into actual action. Every step of the way, there’s an invisible wall, a force inside Jared that fights him, cautions against it. But the difference is, Jared knows what this is now, the attempt of a monster he’ll battle again, and again.

And, each time, Jared hopes, it will get easier.

Doubt is a constant presence; but so is cognizance that it lies.

“Come on,” Jared says, tone level and firm. “We’re moving.”

Jensen nods, smile still faint, but sincere.

“Do you know where you are going?” Jensen asks, because nothing can be _that_ easy.

Jared laughs. “Not really.”

He doesn’t. He has an idea, a hope, a nightmare to go with it. It could be either.

But truth is, Jared doesn’t need to go anywhere to find the answers he seeks right now. He knows them, because they live inside his mind, and they tell him that he can.

Whatever’s on the other side – he’ll fight.

Jared doesn’t know how to explain it to his Guardian. He has the outline, not the entire plan.

But Jensen doesn’t ask more.

His gaze lingers on Jared’s features for a beat too long, the approval in Jensen’s eyes almost making Jared dizzy.

Jared wants – he _needs_ to be closer. He yearns to touch, to feel the smooth, hard planes of Jensen’s body under his fingertips.

What is Jensen doing to him?

It can’t be real. Jared has never felt something like this.

But there’s little time for Jared to figure it out, because Jensen brings his hands forward, palms up, towards the sky.

Jared watches as Jensen closes his eyes, and there’s no warning this time as watches, mesmerized, completely entranced.

The ground breaks under Jared, it shatters into a million pieces under his feet.

Jared falls, and, looking at the emerald smithereens falling alongside him, he wonders – was he wrong?


	6. Part Five

                                                                 
  


 

Where there is a fall, there should be a moment of the crash, too, and it should be hard, it should be the inflexible, rigid truth of reality hitting back.

It shouldn’t be easy.

It shouldn’t happen like it does, with Jared waking up in his apartment, in his own bed, with the bland sky he’s seen last replaced by four walls and a ceiling.

It takes a moment to realize where he is.

He doesn’t want to admit that he’d tried to duplicate a little of Alwarra on Earth. But the stars on his ceiling are plastic, a poor imitation of the night sky that poured through the palace, the fluid blanket of stardust that took the place of a ceiling at night in Alwarra.

“Jared?”

There’s a voice, deep, sandpaper-rough – definitely not Jensen’s.

How long has it been since Jared has heard anyone else? How long was he lost in other worlds?

“Jesus fucking Christ, _it is you_ , you fucking asshole,” Chad barges in, pushing the door and letting it hit the wall with a loud thud. “What the – are you – fuck – “ Murray sputters, not realizing he’s yelling.

He stops by the door. Maybe he doesn’t actually believe that it’s really Jared.

Jared sits up slowly, carefully. There might not have been a crash, but he woke up feeling tired, the kind of tired that was unexplainable, that doesn’t reside in his mind or body, just as a state of being, a feeling, deep down that Jared wishes he could pull out.

“You – _where the fuck were you_?” Chad asks, bewildered.

He’s getting the obvious question out of the way pretty quickly.

The only other reaction would be to stare dumbly at each other for the rest of eternity, but Chad never had the patience for filtering any of his thoughts.

“How long was I gone?” Jared counters.

There’s more pressing matters at hand, Jared thinks, even though he recognizes Chad’s own perplexed predicament.

He wants to answer all of Chad’s questions, to calm him down.

But right now, Jared can’t.

“What – you – three months,” Chad answers, distressed by Jared’s apparent lack of outward reaction.

Well, Jared had his freak out earlier, so. Murray’s turn.

“Shit,” Jared eloquently comments, getting out of bed, and going to the closet in search of a change of clothes.

It might not have felt like three months, but the rumpled shirt he’s in and the tailored pants that were once navy blue are now a sad cauliflower color.

Jared’s stopped in his tracks by Chad, who grabs his arm.

“Stop.”

Jared turns, meets Chad’s gaze. “What –“

But Chad doesn’t answer. They stay like that for seconds that seem too long. Chad loosens his grip on Jared’s bicep, but doesn’t let go completely.

“Look, man,” Chad starts, speaking carefully, “you were gone. You freaking disappeared in front of my eyes. You expect to reappear and not explain anything?”

Murray isn’t giving an inch, and Jared admires the tenacity. He nods, recognizing the truth in Chad’s words, of the explanation he owes his friend.

“Chad … it’s … I have no freaking clue how to explain it in a way that you would understand it.”

Murray arches an eyebrow.

“No – it’s not because of you. It’s just – complicated,” Jared hurries to add, fumbling for any coherence.

He wants to tell Chad. He’d love to share the whole story with him, because then, maybe it would make more sense.

Or, maybe, Chad would look at him like he’s crazy. Which, going by the look in Chad’s eyes at the moment – definitely a strong possibility and much more probable.

Chad steps a few feet back, crosses his arms.

“Where were you, Jared?” he demands, question so simple, that Jared wants to laugh.

But how can he give voice to all the thoughts running through his head? How can he even put into words his experience?

“Chad,” Jared starts, voice cracking around the edges. It’s painful, doing this – fully understanding the concern in Chad’s eyes, knowing that he’s worried, but, on the other hand, being completely aware that Chad, right now, in this moment, can’t help.

He’s not the right person to do that.

It would take too much to explain who Jared is for Chad to even have a decent chance.

“I’m sorry. I … I have to go home,” Jared pleads, hoping Murray will read the unspoken in his eyes, like he usually does. “I need to speak to my father.”

It isn’t a lie, just a half-truth.

But Chad seems satisfied, and, after a few long moments, he nods.

“Good,” Murray says. “Only one thing I really want to ask – for Aldis.”

Jared can’t imagine what it is, or if he wants to hear it.

“Is there another guy?”

It’s a reasonable assumption. It’s well inside the limits of human, of the known thing. Of course Chad would jump to some sort of conclusion.

Trouble is, Jared would love to be able to answer _no_ to that question.

But he can’t lie, he can’t forget about Jensen, not about the feeling that rises up inside him whenever he sees his Guardian.

And, as much as Jared has played fast and loose with the truth regarding his real identity in his relationship with Chad – he won’t lie outright.

“Chad –“

But Jared doesn’t get farther than that. Chad’s features twist in a grimace, and his right hand balls into a fist.

“Fuck you, Jared,” he seethes. “I took your side. When everyone said you left Aldis, that you were too coward to show your face after the fight, I told – I told them all, Jared, that you weren’t like that. That you were a stand-up guy. Well. Guess I was wrong, huh? Took you three fucking months to even show up. _Three fucking months!_ ” Chad finishes, tone rising to dangerous decibels.

“First,” Jared starts, voice surprisingly even, “you have every right to be angry.”

“Don’t patronize me, Jared, ” Chad scoffs.

“I’m not,” Jared answers frankly. “I know I can’t tell you everything you’d like to know right now, and I also know how that can be incredibly frustrating.”

Well, Jared guesses there’s _a_ lesson the time spent with Jensen has taught him.

“But thank you for trusting me,” Jared continues.

“And?”

“And that’s all I have right now. Chad – “ Jared pleads, “it’s going to have to be enough.”

Chad stays there for a long time, fists still clenched, eyes still narrowed, searching for something more than Jared has to give right now.

Jared’s instinct is to say something, to make it better – but what?

What can he say, that would be both true and comforting for Chad, that it wouldn’t raise another thousand questions that he doesn’t really know the answer to?

Jared abandons the task of putting on a new shirt, steps forward. It’s just a few steps, but Chad _knows_ – he’s enveloping Jared with strong arms in the next second.

“I have no idea why I’m doing this,” Chad mutters angrily.

Jared smiles.

He’s going to miss Chad.

They break apart, a perfect moment for things to get slightly awkward.

“So,” Chad starts, fidgeting a few inches away from Jared and elongating the vowel unnecessarily. “When are you coming back?”

“Coming back?” Jared asks, slightly confused.

“You said you were going home,” Chad frowns. “When are you coming back?”

The smile on Jared’s face slides off instantly.

He turns around, looks away from Chad’s inquiring gaze. He uses the pretext of putting on a new shirt to avoid the answer.

“Oh,” is all he hears Chad saying.

It’s devoid of any inflection, but Jared’s guessing Chad’s features are picking up the task of completing the words with an actual meaning.

Jared inhales, turns back around, now fully dressed and finally finding some solid footing. Jensen had said to trust. So he is going to do that.

He is going to tell Chad the truth.

One step at a time. But where does he start?

Jared doesn’t age at the rate humans do.

Jared doesn’t need to eat, he rarely sleeps, and has cognitive abilities beyond human.

Jared is an outsider in a world that allows him to feel normal. Back home, he was … special. He was the King’s son. He was the emblem, the standard – he was a living, breathing symbol of Royalty.

It was pleasant, most of the time. Jared had gained more respect than he deserved by simply following his father’s way of life, by accepting the challenges of the King’s Trials, and rising above. He did it all without any real cognizance of the true meaning of his upbringing.

Jared had a vague idea that there were other ways to live, to fight the King’s authority.

But, Jared has to admit he was comfortable for a long time. Even when confronting the monsters, real and imagined, of the Trials, the terrified boy in him knew his father was within reach. But as he got older, the expectations began to feel like unspoken criticisms – the King made it look so easy.

Jared began to fear that he wasn’t made for this, as his father seemed to think he was.

So, when he reached the age of maturity, he left. Jared left Alwarra to find the answer to the question of who he was on Earth, far from the image created for him by outside forces.

What he’d found on Earth was freedom.

He’d felt, for the first time, the hope of a future he could build with his own hands, not one that was required of him.

And here, now, talking about Aldis, Jared feels grateful for the chance to have done it, for the chance to be _this_ – a man, a lawyer, a human. Not the Prince, not anything else that carried the burden of expectations for the distant future.

But Alwarra’s needs have summoned him home. “You’re paying for the therapy,” Chad says, trying for levity when Jared finishes.

Jared breathes out, relieved. “I already paid for half the liquor cabinet,” he says, referring to the well-stocked stash of alcoholic beverages from the days they were starting their practice. “Therapy gonna cost more than that?”

“You disappeared, you asshole. You literally freaking – _dissolved._ ”

“I’ll leave some money on the dresser,” Jared offers semi-jokingly.

Chad’s lips curve slightly, a shadow of a real smile, but a start.

“A lot of money,” Jared adds sheepishly. At Chad’s questioning frown, Jared continues. “The _going home_ part involves more disappearing. And … will likely be … permanent.”

Chad, true to his chameleon-like ability of adapting quickly to any kind of change – apparently including the _other worlds exist, see me disappear into them_ kind – just rolls his eyes.

“Do you want me to tell Aldis anything? It didn’t go so well last time, just saying,” Chad says, pushing the issue.

Jared deserves it. He’d left without a word, and that might not have been his choice, but to not have thought about Aldis – that was wrong. Jared cared about Aldis. But it was never about love, and it never could have been, given Jared’s identity. His time on Earth, or, at least, in this place, was limited. There was never a real option of building a life here, but the illusion he could was comforting.

So this is his choice, to break it off cleanly.

“He –“ Jared hesitates, almost afraid to ask. “Is he okay?”

“Well –” Chad says, slowly, “Aldis is good. _Now_. Wasn’t so rosy there for a while, the guy thought you had some sort of mental breakdown because of him, but –“

“Are you serious?” Jared asks, because the possibility of Aldis feeling guilty had never even entered his mind.

Their last fight was about Jared’s apparent inability to be honest with Aldis.

Well, it was about a grocery list, or something equally trivial like that, but both Jared and Aldis knew their relationship wasn’t going anywhere, and each of them felt it was because of the other.

“He – well, you don’t get upset, like, ever, ” Chad explains, “so the cold-turkey disappearing thing – yeah, the guy – hell, we all – freaked out a bit.”

“I’m sorry. There wasn’t anything I could do.”

Chad nods, tilting his head. “Is there any way you can … stay long enough to tell him yourself?”

He would – he should. But Jared doesn’t have time.

Somewhere between waking up in his old room and telling Chad his story, Jared realized it’s over. This is also a part of his journey, and a moment of choice.

And Jared is sure of his decision.

He steals a last glance at Chad, commits his friend’s face to memory for all the times he’ll wish to come back here, on Earth.

There’s nothing else to say. If there is, Jared certainly can’t find the words.

Jared closes his eyes, untethers himself from this reality.

This time, his body doesn’t fight him, it just follows his commands. The pressure in his chest dissolves to a faint tingling feeling, and the breath carries him into the Empty.

It’s seconds, years, eternities later that Jared finds himself on the Bridge.

This time, the King doesn’t meet him.

This time, Jared doesn’t need him to.


	7. Part Six

                                                                     
  


 

Fear haunts him; Doubt circles around. And yet, Jared moves forward, each step more sure than the last.

The Bridge, in its crimson and blue, is comforting, familiar, the physical representation of what Jared’s feeling right now – he belongs, finally. Jared feels ready to go home.

The Bridge stretches, on and on, in a spectacular illusion of movement and change, a mirage that paints itself in the most wonderful colors, but loses its sense the farther you go, the deeper you get lost. It’s endless, for those who don’t know what they’re looking for.

Jared’s initially confident strides are accompanied by a soft crunching sound, making a rhythm that gets slower the closer he gets to the Gates of Alwarra. It’s a long, winding road and, despite the surety he had when he stepped onto the Bridge, when he arrives in front of the big, flower-covered arcade, there’s a knot in his stomach, and a question in his mind.

He steps off the bridge and the layers of clouds under his feet become more solid flooring, color progressing from simple gold to intricate amber.

Jared stops, breathes in.

It isn’t until he reaches to touch the dark flowers covering the arcade, splashes of deep plum on a canvas of green, that Jared allows himself a relieved exhale.

Alwarra doesn’t let just anyone in. And he’d had the nagging worry that it would no longer recognize him as one of its sons.

But Jared has passed the first challenge – and he would stay and revel in the feeling, but he knows, it’s only a small step along the Path he must complete.

The road fills with people that recognize Jared.

They come out from their homes to welcome the Prince. He sees them dressed in casual attire, in the traditional cotton dresses and shirts, varying in shades and colors.

No one bows; that’s not the custom. That kind of reverence is only reserved for The King.

But almost everyone reaches out to Jared for a shake of his hand, or, in the case of the children, a hug. Jared had been the child that everyone saw growing up, and when he’d left, he’d abandoned friends, family – good people, people that are welcoming him home again with open arms.

Jared, stops, briefly, but not for the attention – there’s a blur, a reflection like  asphalt burning on a hot summer day, simmering black.

Jared escapes the crowd with some difficulty, throwing an offhand remark about the King expecting him at the palace. It works a little too well, enough that Jared feels guilty for playing so fast and loose with the truth again.

He runs towards the shadow he’d spotted.

But Jared shouldn’t have hurried. It waits for him, quiet, motionless, inscrutable.

And Jared realizes he’d known from the beginning and simply refused to believe it, who Jensen is.

Or _what_.

A Shadow, a being lost in itself, a hope disintegrated into dust – that has resurrected itself for him.

“Jensen,” Jared says, calling his name instinctively.

And the Guardian turns, faces Jared – and for a moment, Jared sees his true form. Emptiness and bare bones. That’s all Jensen is.

That’s all Jared can see.

And he wants to say – everything. He wants to fix it. He wants to scream.

And he wonders why _how_ Jensen is here for him.

“You’re ready,” Jensen brings Jared back to now.

It’s not a question. There is no doubt in the statement.

Jared nods. “The last challenge, right? My own choice.”

“There never was another one,” Jensen confirms.

Jared could have abandoned his journey. _Could have_ , in theory. But that wasn’t who he was, and the Keeper, or whoever had designed his trials, knew that.

Jared would fight. Jared’s value was courage, and determination, and nothing else mattered beside that.

“They are expecting you,” Jensen says, motioning towards the road that leads to the Palace.

It’s nothing Jared didn’t know.

This is all his monsters, gathered into together.  
  


  
  
  


The room is spacious, too much so. The Palace always seemed too big to Jared – he never felt like he could fill it well enough.

The walls are a soft, fuzzy light blue that encourages meditation and peace of mind, with lines of inky mahogany that stabilize the castle’s form as it stretches upwards, towards the graphite and honey of the Alwarrian sky.

“Welcome home,” the King greets him, calm and precise.

There’s too little emotion in those words, and, at the same time, too much. Jared holds his father’s gaze, searches for any indication of what’s to come.

Jared had expected to see his his mother and Danneel, his sister, with his father. After all, wasn’t this the welcome home party?

Somewhere, buried deep in his mind, and scrambling to get to the surface, is the truth, awareness of what’s happening. It has been there from the start, a background feeling that tried to scratch its way into his consciousness, but kept hitting the wall that Jared put up.

There was never a moment when Jared really believed he got off so easy. There was never a second where his body recognized safety.

But it was comforting to pretend, in an extra second with Chad, in a step taken slower than necessary.

The Fear is all around him, in him, burrowing into his soul.

Jared’s mind fights itself, rational and irrational battling for the courtside seat to witness the present and become a part of it.

Jared breathes deeply, concentrates on maintaining a steady exterior to control the storm inside his head.

“Where is mother?” Jared asks, in a futile attempt to gain back a piece of normal.

The King smiles.

“She will be here soon.”

How does Jared break through? How does he get from here, from the point where he feels like he’s going to implode, to the clear sky? What does he say? What does he need to ask?

“Please,” Jared tries. “Just – let’s get this over with, Father.”

Motion, active thought.

That’s what Jared needs right now.

“As you wish,” the King complies.

There is an ugly curve of his lips that Jared doesn’t recognize. His father was always stoic, inexpressive, authoritative, but never cruel.

The King raises his right arm, fingers outlining a swift sigil directed toward the sky.

It’s strange, how a gesture so small can have such an outcome: the surroundings reshape themselves, they close off. Lines that served as simple demarcations of walls twist, entwine, cage Jared inside the room, an iron pattern that breaks the outside light.

There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Jared feels powerless, until a voice inside his mind, a voice that sounds remarkably like Jensen’s, reminds him: he’s strong.

The King remains unmoving, unperturbed by the change. He studies Jared attentively, without any pretense that he isn’t doing exactly that, and Jared doesn’t feel like the Prince, like the King’s son. He is only a man, a nobody, a prisoner in front of a judge.

Jared has trouble remembering feeling any differently in front of his father, an insignificant disappointment and failure. But at the back of his mind, a feeling struggles to break through, to remind  Jared of the truth, supply some solid footing.

Jared’s father speaks again, firmly and dispassionately.

“Why have you returned, Jared?”

Jared should have expected the question. The answer felt obvious, he didn’t need to explain.

“Are you saying you didn’t want me to?” Jared counters. Then, making a connection, adds, “Or you didn’t expect me to return?”

“I certainly thought it would have taken you longer,” the King replies. “You have proven yourself to be quite apprehensive about your role as my heir in the past.”

“Just because I questioned what you asked of me doesn’t mean I renounced my title. I am still your son.”

Jared knows, the moment he says it, what he started: words thrown like bullets, without any chance to be stopped.

“It rarely feels like that anymore, Jared,” the King says, shaking his head.

The words hurt more than Jared thought they could have. They hurt, and they travel to the depths of his mind, drilling and scratching at the certainty that he belonged here, that his father loved him.

Why fight who he is? Denying it will not change. Jared’s imperfect, flawed, unsure, wanting to be loved.

“I know I have disappointed you,” he starts, voice coming out surprisingly strong. “I know you wish I was different. But … I’m not. I’m … me. And that has to be enough.”

“It’s not me whom you have disappointed, Jared,” the King responds. “It is your mother.”

As soon as the words come out of the King’s mouth, a shape appears in the distance, and Jared’s heart beats faster as it nears.

It’s his mother, in a delicate, creamy white dress, a sharp contrast to crimson mantel the King wears.

Jared’s stuck.

He realizes there’s a reality beyond his thoughts; but, right now, he can’t filter anything beyond the emotions, the fog that blurs everything. He wants to step forward, hug her.

Jared wants to ask why she didn’t say he was enough when he was growing up.

It’s a blend of past and present, of love and anger.

“Mother,” he says, voice strong, but bereft.

She smiles, soft, and almost genuine.

“You’ve come back.”

It’s all his mother says, voice melodious, a beautiful song.

Jared frowns. “Of course I did. I was always coming back.”

Didn’t they know that? Jared’s decision was never final, or, rather, it was never to abandon his family.

The Queen steps closer to the King’s side.

“You never told us that, Jared,” she aaccuses, shaking her head.

His father’s tone was harsh, but the rebuke coming out of her mouth – Jared knows it would hurt less if those words had come from the King.

The King never understood him. But his mother –she’s the one that showed him how to create a sun on the wall in his room, so Jared would wake up with a smile on his face, with the hope and optimism that she wanted him to learn.

“Why did you leave, Jared? Were we not enough?”

Again, her voice, a dagger that pierces, a cold blade that presses against his skin with the promise of hurting.

“No – that’s not –“ he tries, because this can’t be real.

It can’t be what they think of Jared, of who he is. He’s worked so hard to build himself, to find the strength in himself, to reach the ideal image he had inside his head – and now, now they’re telling Jared they don’t see it, that Jared is just a man who left, a man defined by choices that care only about himself.

He is breaking, with each word said.

“You were selfish, Jared. You thought that it was supposed to be easy, and when it wasn’t, you left. You let yourself fall prey to Doubt, to Fear, and you abandoned your family in our time of need.”

It peels off, a layer, a piece of himself – a shadow that filters itself through its surroundings, takes all the colors from them. It has no substance, yet, when it happens, Jared feels  despair, anger, fear  in quick succession, so fast that Jared isn’t able to put a name to them, just lets them ball into an oppressive weight that crushes him, and it’s hard to breathe.

It falls, the Jared that was born out of his mother’s wishes, out of his mother’s dreams for him. The shape slithers, it writhes, it dissolves, slips through the cracks.

She’s unperturbed.

The King makes no gesture, not one of victory, not one of defeat.

Jared seizes that non-response as a clue that this is not what it seems.

“Danneel?” he asks, voice scratchy and rough, remembering how to talk properly, remembering how to move the mouth of this new self.

Jared is testing his theory.

He’s plunging right through, because there’s no other way to the end than right through it.

The King nods, and the Queen stretches out a hand – she welcomes another figure that steps into the room confidently.

Danneel is the only one who looks happy, genuinely glad to see him.

But Jared’s perception is wrong, and he has misinterpreted her smile, because when she speaks, she’s no more welcoming than his parents.

“Finally think you can take me up on that challenge?” she questions, mocking him with a smirk.

They’d been competitive since they were little.

They always wanted to do what the other did, only better.

And Danneel was better than Jared – she made her choices seem effortless, made Jared feel like he could never be as good as she was.

“You’ll lose again, Jared,” she announces, and it bears the aura of an uncontestable truth that claws at Jared’s foundation, that unglues more parts of him. “You were never good enough. Father pretended to believe in you, carried you into every trial and challenge, hoping maybe, maybe, you would get strong enough.”

She laughs again, shrill, a sound Jared never heard coming out of her mouth before.

“He was wrong, Jared, wasn’t he? And you knew it from the start. That’s why you left. You could never be King, you could never follow in his footsteps,” she finishes.

Jared can’t speak.

So his body reacts for him – it rips, it flays off in strips as Danneel’s words shred his identity.

It’s easier, because this time, Jared expects it.

He knows how much power he has given to his family to define him. That’s when the wave of despair reaches the high point. It crashes down upon him, and he staggers but forces himself to remain upright  because he knows his mind – he knows how much Fear and Doubt work to cloud the clear sky.

“Father, no more words from you?” Jared challenges, because he knows he must touch the bottom before he can trust himself.

Jared feels weak, he feels like his legs don’t listen to him anymore, they’re not solid, they can’t possibly carry him, but he’s smiling, because this is  only as real as Jared makes it.

“You know what I think of you, my son,” the King says, soft curve of his lips. “You quit. You are a shame.”

Jared knows that is not true.

And still, that doesn’t stop the tears from falling. It doesn’t stop the way it feels like his insides are trying to make their way up his throat.

Jared nods. There’s no merit in contesting, not when it doesn’t change him.

It’s in him – Jared has to trust that.

He waits, seconds, eternities, maybe, for something. Anything.

It’s done, isn’t it?

He’d endured it. His greatest fear. His most debilitating doubts.

Jared realizes his future isn’t on Earth, the freedom he thought he possessed there was also here on Alwarra.

His freedom comes from within, from a change inside himself, in his perspective.

Jared dared. He finally understands his Path _._

He has tried. He has failed.

Jared has lived searching, looking for something outside of himself that would complete the puzzle,.

It’s exhilarating to find out that he has possessed it all along. His journey, his road, the Path in front of him – this is who he is, that this is who he’s always been. The only thing missing was the acceptance of his destiny, and the realization that he wasn’t confined by it.

On the contrary, it is the stepping point for all his dreams.

And he’s still standing before the illusion of his family. Why? Why isn’t anything happening? Why does he still feel like half a person, like any strong wind could knock him down?

The answer comes when Jared thinks of Jensen, who appears in the room like Jared’s family had. Except, to Jared, Jensen’s presence is … real.

This must still be part of completing the Path, so it makes sense that his Guardian would be here for his revelation.

But – Jensen shouldn’t have a voice. Not now.

This … this confrontation has been a machination of Jared’s mind. It is real, as much as any thought of Jared’s is. This is Jared’s world, disintegrating and piecing itself back together again in a new perspective.

But Jensen isn’t a part of that. He doesn’t know Jared enough to give voice to any of his thoughts. Jensen’s dressed in white, frustratingly blank, a meaningless color against the mosaic in Jared’s mind.

“You gave me the right, Jared,” Jensen corrects. “You chose this when you accepted the journey and you accepted me as your Guardian.”

“There was an option to not accept it?” Jared asks.

It wouldn’t have mattered, he tells himself.

“You needed the help. You couldn’t have done without my guidance,” Jensen replies.

And Jared just laughs, because those are echoes of his thoughts, words without  value because Jared created Jensen.

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” Jared agrees. “You’re right. But you aren’t real.”

“Really?” Jensen questions. “So will it not hurt when I tell you that you hold no chance?”

“I will finish this. I will come out on the other side.”

Jensen smiles softly, pitying. “Oh, I have no doubt about that.”

“So what? What can you say that I’ve not already heard?”

“Do you really think you can be with me? That you’re worthy to even think about caring for me? You are fooling yourself, thinking you know anything about me,” Jensen voices, quietly, a slow erosion that chips away at the last of Jared’s strength.

“I think I can free you,” Jared replies, his words more sure than he feels.

Jensen laughs. “Free me?”

This Jensen isn’t real. But looking at this simulacrum, Jared _knows_ there is a real Jensen – one that Jared will fight to get back to.

“You’re a Shadow.”

It’s the first time Jensen seems surprised – he frowns. “So I am.”

“The Keeper imprisoned you,” Jared says, realizing, for the first time, that his father believed in him all along.

He trusted Jared. The King trusted his son to make this journey.

“You didn’t tell me the whole legend,” Jared continues. “You didn’t say that the Keeper’s Legend exists on other worlds. And you didn’t tell me I could save a Shadow.”

“I told the Legend,” Jensen counters, narrowing his eyes. “That is my duty.”

Jared shakes his head, tears tracking down his cheeks. “You didn’t tell me _my_ duty. But my father did.”

“And what would that be?”

“Helping,” Jared shrugs. “Being strong enough in myself to serve others.”

“And do you think you are strong enough for that?”

Jared thinks about his father, his mother, his sister.

Jared thinks about what his creation of them said – and then, he refuses their judgment. Rejects his own view of himself as weak that he had them utter. It doesn’t matter. It’s that realization, not allowing his truths in someone else’s hands, that makes him makes him steel himself against Doubt and Fear and Despair.

Jared is the only one that can truly know himself. So he trusts himself when he answers, loud, strong, confident.

“Yes.”

The figures before him morph, they take other shapes, and yet, they’re still the same and as Jared falls to his knees with a cry, that’s the last thing he sees before the Empty takes him.

Jared closes his eyes, lets himself fall, because he knows he’s going to rise back up again.


	8. Epilogue

  
                                                                   

 

_The Keeper stands in front of Jared, beautiful, young, delicate. She smiles, a frightening gesture that holds no warmth._

_“You’ve reached the end of the Path,” she tells Jared._

_It sounds final, but Jared doesn’t understand it like that._

_“It’s just the beginning of my journey.”_

_The Keeper nods in agreement. “You return to the words of your Guardian.”_

_She’s only inches away from Jared’s face, but he doesn’t flinch when she brings her hand to his cheeks, brushes cold fingers against his jaw._

_“You have a request.”_

_She knows. He’s the sum of his choices, and this one – it’s predictable._

_“I do,” Jared confirms. “It is your powers that turned Jensen into a Shadow. And it is you who can turn him back.”_

_She listens patiently, stares straight into Jared’s eyes while he talks._

_“Why would I do that, Hero? What would I have to gain from that?”_

_Jared chooses to answer honestly. “Nothing.”_

_She narrows her eyes. “You do not offer anything in exchange? Yourself, perhaps?”_

_“I will, if it is necessary,” Jared replies. “But it’s not what you want.”_

_“It is not?” she asks, testing Jared once again._

_He shakes his head. “No. It’s not the right thing, and you know it. The Guardian has done his duty. He has served you the best way he knows how.”_

_The Keeper studies him._

_Her lips stretch into a pleasant smile, pride of the teacher whose student has surpassed expectations._

_“He guided a Hero who completed his journey,” she nods. “You have learned your purpose.  The Keeper has no use for those who have passed the test.”_

_Jared nods._

_“That was Jensen’s Path.”_

_“Longer, twistier,” she sighs. “By fate and the Guardian’s own design.”_

_“But it is done.”_

_The Keeper shifts away from Jared, but nods. “It is. You are free. Both you and your Guardian.”_

_She says something more. But Jared doesn’t hear anything else. He can’t feel anything beyond the relief those words bring._

_He breathes._

_He breathes like a newborn emerging from the womb._

_Jared closes his eyes, weight of his body more present with each inhale, the Empty closing in with each exhale._

_When Jared opens his eyes, he’s in the Empty again._   
  


  
  


This time, the Empty is pitch-black.

Dark, fluid, soft.

It isn’t threatening. It doesn’t make Jared want to run, because he knows it can’t hurt him.

Spots of light break through, slowly dissolving the darkness inch by inch, and bringing with it awareness in Jared’s mind.

His eyes blink, tentative movement that still carries the doubt of what he’ll find when he wakes up.

But when Jared finds the true light of morning, he finds Jensen, face close – too close – to his.

Jensen’s eyes are bright, searching Jared’s for something, and Jared still can’t read the meaning. But the thought comes and goes, it passes when he regains feeling in his body, and feels Jensen’s touch, a soft brush of his fingers on his ribcage.

It’s real like the touch of the other Jensen never was, and Jared finds happiness and beauty in just that moment, for the simplicity and newness of it, and it’s his – his moment, his to cherish. But the point of contact burns, sears under Jensen’s fingertips, it’s too little, through his cotton shirt, just a maddening tease.

Jared doesn’t have words. He’s exhausted them all.

But even if he had, he doesn’t think he could ever find the right ones to express the feeling spreading through his chest. He has never experienced them before, not this intensely.

Jared brings his hand up slowly, waiting for permission. He allows Jensen to give his own meaning to this second.

Jensen stays silent.

Jared smiles, brushes his thumb against Jensen’s cheekbone.

The reaction is instant, a ripple Jensen’s calm sea. The Guardian closes his eyes, a painful, reflexive gesture that he tries to stop in its tracks, but years of instinct are too strong to be overcome in these first moments.

Jensen’s free. He isn’t caged by rules, or self-imposed duty, or his own constructs of his worth.

Jensen can allow himself this – a quiet, little moment that has no value except in the feeling.

And Jared’s afraid to break the moment, but he’s more afraid of Jensen not hearing him.

“It’s okay,” Jared whispers. “You’re here.”

Jensen nods, almost imperceptibly. He fists his hands in Jared’s shirt for the briefest of moments. He searches for something in Jared’s eyes. It’s a confirmation, a promise, a thank you.

Too quickly  Jensen lets go and props himself up beside Jared.

 

“I thought –“ Jensen starts, voice breaking the silence, “ – I didn’t know if you made it.”

Jared, of all the things he could do, laughs.

“You should have more confidence in me.”

Jensen turns his head to face Jared, gaze soft.

“Yes … maybe I should.”

The tone of Jensen’s voice sends shivers up Jared’s spine, and it’s strange, how much it feels like a promise.

And he doesn’t know – is it just himself? Or does Jensen, too, have these feelings?

“I – thank you, Jared,” Jensen says, eyes completing that sentence in more ways that Jared could ever understand.

“You do realize, it’s _you_ who freed yourself?”

Jensen frowns.

“I do not understand.”

“I didn’t do anything, Jensen. Just tried my best. One second at a time.”

“But –“

“Sometimes the right catalyst has to come along,” Jared explains “but it’s always you. You’re the one that did it. You’re the one that lived through it.”

Jensen studies him for a few seconds.

This time, Jared doesn’t feel uneasy – he’s confident in what he’s saying.

“I – I lost track,” Jensen whispers. “Sometimes you do the same thing, over and over again, and forget where you are heading.”

“I know.”

“During the War back home … I wanted to help. I wanted to do something that mattered. _Change_ ,” Jensen explains, with more passionate than Jared’s ever seen in him. “Change something that would make Neirni a better place. But I was too late. There was nothing that could have been done, and yet, this – desire, it lived inside me.”

Jared nods, Jensen’s words bringing up the feeling of his own struggle.

“I searched for something that would fulfill it – I searched worlds for something that felt like – like myself,” Jensen stutters, searching for the right words.

“When I met the Keeper … it seemed like the right thing. She offered me a deal, and I needed – I needed something solid. Something that made sense. I didn’t think it would turn to … _this_ ,” Jensen finishes.

“But that’s exactly what it was, Jensen,” Jared stares into Jensen’s eyes, because he needs Jensen to understand this. “It’s something you learned from.”

Jensen stays quiet for a few moments.

“You’re right,” Jensen finally says, “but it’s going to take me some time to be able to see it like that.”

Jared shrugs.

“We’re not going anywhere,” he says, nonchalantly, fully aware of the meaning the words could take. “Except, maybe, inside the Palace. I have no clue what kind of thermal setting you Neirnians have, but I’m freezing – and I would really like to see my family,” Jared adds, smiling. “The real ones, to erase the twisted versions of them my mind concocted.”

Jensen grimaces. “Yes, that was hard to watch.”

Jared’s momentarily distracted.

“You _watched?_ ”

He doesn’t know what to feel about someone having courtside seats to what was, admittedly, one of his weakest moments – even if his greatest strength came from it.

“I was always there, Jared. We all were,” Jensen confirms. “You just couldn’t see.”

Jared drops his head in his palms.

“I think your family is just going to be glad that you’re back.”

“Yeah,” Jared agrees reluctantly.

He understands now why his father had chosen him – had prepared him for this test all his life. It was the King’s vote of confidence in who Jared was.

But, still, it’s not easy, feeling that vulnerable.

“Are you ready to hear the real part?” Jensen asks, in a serious tone that makes Jared question if there’s a right answer to that.

He watches Jensen for a moment, tries to get a clue, but as always, Jensen’s features don’t reveal much.

“I think it would be a mistake to say no just because I’m afraid,” Jared counters, deciding to be brutally honest.

To his surprise, Jensen smiles softly, encouraging.

“I think you are braver than you believe,” Jensen tells him. “And I know you understand more than you really realize.”

“Well, I think I’m on the right track.”

Jensen arches an eyebrow. “New, confident Jared? Is Alwarra ready for this?”

“Yes.”

“Care to elaborate?” Jensen asks, and if Jared didn’t know any better, he’d say the Guide was actually curious.

“Nope,” Jared replies, fully enjoying the satisfaction of seeing Jensen stumped. “I’ll show you,” he adds, taking mercy on the confused Guide.

Jared centers his mind and they are in the Garden of the PalaceHe used to come here when he wanted to be by himself, when he needed to let his thoughts run away from him, when he needed to just … be. Not do, not try, not fight, just let go of all expectations and reprimand.

“This was my sanctuary,” he explains with a gentle touch to Jensen’s arm. “I want to share it – to share myself – with you.”

The uncertain look in Jensen’s green eyes surprises him and Jared wonders if he has misinterpreted their connection. But Jensen sees Jared’s concern, however, and reaches out to grasp Jared’s hand.

“Jared, you have to understand,” he says earnestly, “this is new for me. I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ve never _thought_ about someone like I think about you. I don’t know what to do with … all I’m feeling. I don’t know how to do this right.”

Well, honesty should be rewarded in kind.

“I don’t think it’s about mistakes, Jensen, or worrying that we might make them.It’s about being willing to try.”

“But how do I do that? What if I don’t know how to do that?”

Jared ponders that for a moment.

“Is this your choice?”

Jensen furrows his brows.

“Is this what you want?” Jared elaborates. “It’s your choice. You are free. You can do anything you want.”

Wasn’t that the truth of the Path? Would Jensen see that Jared’s lesson applies to him as well?

Jensen’s silence weighs on Jared, longer than the seconds are in reality.

“It is,” Jensen answers and Jared breathes a sigh of relief.

“Then there is a way.”

Jensen laughs. “I hope your blind optimism is contagious.”

“It isn’t blind optimism,” Jared scoffs. “It’s about believing that you, I, _we_ can. Isn’t that what this whole journey was about?”

“It is about whatever each journeyer wants to make it.”

Jared grins.

“See? You’re back already.”

Jensen narrows his eyes. “I have the feeling you are mocking me.”

“And you would be right.”

“Jared?”

“Yes.”

“Can I change my mind?”

Jared sobers up in an instant, Jensen’s words like ice water over him.

But Jensen begins _laughing._

“Oh, you –“ Jared splutters.

Jensen shrugs, a mischievous smile transforming his face. “I can learn to annoy you, too.”

“Uh-huh,” Jared mutters,” I may want to rethink this myself.”

But he’s smiling so widely Jared thinks he’s going to hurt his jaw. The unexpected turn in conversation was a welcome surprise.

This is a new Jensen, different from the one Jared had spent – well, whatever amount of time it actually was. But, at the same time, it’s still his Guardian, in minute ways that Jared can’t explain.

Maybe the glint in his emerald eyes.

Jensen’s hands, soft and strong.

The contradiction of cold and warm he embodies, the whole that Jared can’t help but feel drawn to like a magnet.

“I think you’ll hit it off with Danneel just fine,” Jared says, thinking of the bond the two will form solely on teasing Jared endlessly – Jared can already see it happening. And, it doesn’t bother him ... he’s actually looking forward to it – to all of it. To his reunion with his family, to figuring out this thing with Jensen.

“Come on, ” he adds, standing up. “Time to meet the family.”

There’s a flicker in Jensen’s eyes, a moment of doubt. But he follows Jared, gets up without a word. There’s something to be said about doing one’s duty without complaint.

There’s thoughts that run around in Jared’s head, too, niggling and prodding. He hasn’t seen his family in a long time. He can rationalize the event in ten million different ways, and tell himself that there’s nothing to fear, not anymore – but still, the tightness in his chest is there to stay.

They walk along a path framed by trees that stretch towards the sky, dark green of the leaves and small, mauve flowers that spread their petals on the ground, and the silence lends itself to the surroundings. Everything is still, more so than Jared has ever seen.

Jared steals a look over at Jensen, who is taking in everything around him.What does Jensen see?

Does he see the beauty, too? The silence, the peace, the freedom he promised at the end of the Path?

Jared doesn’t know.

Maybe he is – Jensen’s smiling, a slight curve of his lips that’s almost imperceptible. It’s the promise that makes Jared want to  figure out how many ways there are to make Jensen do that again.

This is a new journey, just beginning.


End file.
